i85o 173 stood up stiffly, and holding to the back-folded hood with one hand, lest by a jolt he should be jerked into the road, whilst with the other he drew out his blue cotton handkerchief and wiped the recurrent drop from his nose, said in a low and solemn tone, " Why—God bless my soul ! Them's bigger than Dartmoor." On our arrival at Pau, my father took a flat in a large new house on the outskirts of the higher town, where began the landes, not here overgrown by trees, but heaths, and with several tumuli rising out of it, that proved to be Gaulish, and of the iron age. My spare time in the winter was eyent in the public library translating Michaud's Histoire des Croisades. Early in the spring I was digging up flower roots in a little lane leading out of the road to Gan, beyond the Pont d'Oly, when I found a number of cubes of mosaic. I went at once to the farmer at Jurancon, who rented the field and asked his explanation of my find. " Oh ! " said he, " there are whole pictures underground in beautiful colours." I begged him to let me see specimens, and he went with me to the field with pick and spade and dug a couple of pits at a distance of a hundred yards north and south, and each revealed mosaic floors. I then bargained with him to let me cut a trench between the two holes, lying north and south, and agreed that if anything were found he should be allowed to charge at the gate for admission. I had not many francs saved, but I expended what I had in digging, and exposed partially a succession of pavements in singular preservation. Public attention was aroused, and a subscription raised among the English for the prosecution of the excavation. Finally, nearly, but not completely, was the house cleared, when the owner of the field instituted a proces against the farmer about the rights, and gaining his suit, passed the field over to the town. The fact was that the French were vastly jealous of the English for having done this work, and pressure was put upon the owner to transfer the land to the town authorities. Before it was given up, our English Committee had volunteered to clear the drains all round the Villa, to cut away all chances of water lodging in the excavation, and finally to build a shed over the whole. The offer was curtly refused. The Mayor and Corporation did none of these necessary things, water lodged in the halls,
